Shinzo Abe: Occam's Razor Triumphs

A recent article in the Economist discusses Shinzo Abe and his recent denial that Japan ever “used coercion” to “force” Chinese, Korean and Philippino women to work in sexual slavery in brothels during World War II.

First, my brief opinion of Abe’s comments: It is outrageous that years after the Japanese kidnapped, tortured, raped and assaulted these women, that the head of the Japanese government is, in effect, adding insult to injury by saying,“Heh. Boy, you bitches were such sluts.” Moreover, while I will concede that perhaps some of the kidnapped women had been prostitutes working brothels anyway, Abe is clearly implying that, “It’s OK to rape a whore, since she has no right to say no and has it coming anyway.”

The Economist notes that because Abe’s tenure as prime minister has thus far been a failure on the two key areas the Japanese public most cares about—economic growth and corruption reform, his approval ratings are dismally low.

The gist of the article argues that Abe made his unbelievably racist and disrespectful comments as a way to shore up and drum up support among his political base of conservative revisionists and hopefully raise his approval rating.

They’re missing the point.

Abe’s political base is indeed built on the support of conservative revisionists, but only because he agrees with their racist, ethnocentric views. We forget that this is a man whose grandfather, a top lieutenant of World War II generalissimio/Prime Minister Tojo and a leader in the occupation of Chinese Manchuria, barely escaped being tried as a Class A war criminal. This is a man whose father was implicated in one of the biggest bribery/insider trading scandals in Japanese history. But enough about his family …

This is a man who published a book that claimed that Japan perpetrated no war crimes during World War II, and fostered no war criminals. A man who successfully censored—against his country’s own free speech laws—a Japanese documentary that featured an opposing view to Japan’s wartime sex crimes history. A man who has argued that Japan should rebuild its military with an eye toward developing “first strike” capabilities.

This is a racist, an ethnocentric madman who, if he had his way, would return Japan to its bloodthirsty, imperialistic World War II-era plans for total Asian (and world) domination—if he could.

Sometimes, Occam is right – the simplest explanation is the correct one. Why did Shinzo Abe make such outrageous, morally bankrupt statements? Because he himself is outrageous, bigoted and morally bankrupt.